1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to drive control for changing illumination characteristics of an illumination apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, flash shooting (hereinafter, “bounce flash shooting”) is known in which light is emitted from an illumination apparatus toward a ceiling or the like to illuminate a subject with diffuse-reflected light from the ceiling or the like. In the bounce flash shooting, a subject can be illuminated indirectly, not directly, with light from an illumination apparatus. This enables imaging with soft light.
Further, there has been proposed a technique for automatically determining an optimum illumination direction in bounce flash shooting. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-340527 discusses a technique for automatically setting the angle of a flash light emitting unit at the time of emitting a flash toward a ceiling in bounce flash shooting based on information about the distance to an object located above a camera and the distance to a subject.
Further, there has been conventionally known an illumination apparatus capable of changing an illumination range so that the illumination range required according to the focal length of an imaging apparatus can be illuminated with light.
If the mechanism for changing the illumination range of a flash light emitting unit is applied to the camera discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-340527, the following issue arises.
In the camera discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-340527, if power is supplied to the mechanism for changing the illumination range of the flash light emitting unit while power is supplied to a stepping motor (M1) to change the angle of the flash light emitting unit, a large amount of power is needed. Thus, depending on the state of a power source, the supply of power may become insufficient, and an operation to change the angle of the flash light emitting unit and an operation to change the illumination range of the flash light emitting unit may not be executed normally. As a result, an appropriate angle and illumination range may not be obtained.